ore the
General, he said--

"I am the Sheikh Moussa. Neither I nor any of my tribe have
acknowledged the Mahdi, whom we hold to be a False Prophet and impostor.
Whereupon he sent a body of troops to attack the village where seven
families of us dwelt. They came at the rising of the moon, and set fire
to our huts, but we flew to arms, and thrice drove them back, slaying
two for one. But they were ten to one, and at each onset we were fewer
and more weary. At last the fight turned to mere slaughter. I sought
my dromedary and fled, in hopes of vengeance. They have slain my wife,
my children, my slaves; there is a blood feud between the Mahdi and me.
Then I remembered that the Turks led by Englishmen were at Khartoum,
preparing for an attack upon my enemy, and I said, I will seek the
English Turk, the Hicks Pasha, and I will say, `I would be avenged upon
my enemy, but I am alone, and what can one arm do? I have a sharp
sword, I have a far-killing gun, I have a blood feud with your enemy.
Let me fight in your ranks.' I rode part of a night, and a day, and a
second night; I had only filled my water-bottle once. It ran dry; my
wounds grew stiff. I said, `I shall never reach Khartoum, I shall die
unavenged. It is Allah's will; praise to Allah, and the One Prophet,
for whom I am.' When lo! The English-led Turk army has risen up and
gone forth to meet me. It is Fate."

He had a drink of water given to him, and then the General asked him if
he knew El Obeid well.

"Every street, every corner of the ramparts," he replied. "Did I not
take part in the defence when the Mahdi--may his grave be defiled!--was
driven from them with slaughter?"

"You may ride with us," said the General. "Look to his cuts, Howard,"
he added, seeing him close by, with a sponge and a bandage already in
his hand.

It was a sparing drop of water that was used, and that was presently
drunk with avidity, defiled as it was. Howard declared the cuts to be
mere flesh wounds of no consequence.

"I am the most unlucky fellow that ever was!" he exclaimed; "I never do
get any gun-shot wounds, hardly."

The Sheikh Moussa certainly proved an acquisition that day, for he took
them a route diverging somewhat from that which they had been following,
and so cutting off some three miles of their journey to the wells where
they were to halt till the moon was up. And three miles when the water
is running low are a matter of tremendous import to the tra